Strawberry Paradise
by NothingCharming
Summary: The day she died, everything changed.


**AN: **This is just a oneshot based very loosely on an RP I'm in. The lovely Aly gave me the idea and we both cried our way through this. Enjoy! And please review.

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><p>When the machine goes silent it's like a part of him disappears. The fire in his eyes burns out and vibrant blues are replaced with an ashy gray. He just sits there staring as the love of his life takes her final agonizing breath.<p>

He doesn't speak a single word for four days. And he doesn't leave their bed or the comforting scent of strawberry on her pillow for anything except the funeral. Their friends all huddle around him like somehow it will make a difference. Like somehow they can heal him. His first words in over four days and they're to tell his friends to 'fuck off and leave me alone.'

On the sixth day he can no longer smell her on their sheets. He moves to the living room. That only lasts 3 days before it too fades.

He makes his first trip into the world since her death on the 10th day. He buys a bottle of her perfume and a copy of Cosmo. He sprays the perfume everywhere and sits staring at the cover of the magazine until his eyes go hazy.

On his 11th day without her, he breaks down for the first time. Her favorite picture of them smashes into the wall she'd insisted they paint blue to match his eyes and the guitar he used to stash in her closet in high school fell in splinters on their kitchen floor next to the Cosmo he'd ripped to shreds.

He makes her favorite meal that night but quickly throws it away when he realizes that the smell of the food overpowers her smell. He sprays the perfume again and suddenly everything smells like strawberries.

His friends give him a full two weeks before they show up. The door is locked but Clay knows where they keep the spare. Not a single one of them is sure what to expect. But they know they didn't expect this.

The house is spotless. There's not a single thing out of place. Their pictures still litter ever inch of the house and the book Brooke had been reading still sat open on the coffee table as if she'd be back for it. The picture frame Chris had broken hangs back in its rightful place. He'd glued the pieces back together and thrown the glass away, but otherwise it's exactly the same.

There's a thin layer of dust over the piano and Chris's guitar is missing from its stand in the corner of the room. It makes sense, Clay thinks, she had been his every inspiration. The scent of strawberry is overwhelming and Peyton coughs as she breathes it in, glancing back at Mia for a brief moment.

They find Chris in the bedroom with her sketches spread out over every inch of the room. He doesn't even acknowledge them as they walk in, his finger lightly tracing the chubby cheeks of the child she'd imagined them having. The child he hadn't even had a chance to meet before it was gone. The child that had taken her from him.

"His name was supposed to be Liam," he whispered, voice cracking on the second syllable.

When he looks up at his friends, not a single one of them recognizes him. Gone is the soft shine of his hair from the shampoo Brooke had insisted he use. And the baby blues that had always been filled with such joy are now dull and gray. He wears a shirt she painted for him in high school; the green and pink power rangers, ninja turtles, and the cat they'd owned standing proudly on his chest and back.

He's gaunt and his cheek bones are more visible from lack of food and sleep. His wedding ring looks ready to roll right off his finger at any moment and his knuckles are pink and black from his attack on the kitchen wall the night before. Whoever this man is… he's not Chris Keller. He's not the guy who somehow weaseled his way into being Clay Evans best friend. Or the guy who was so sweet that Mia Catalano couldn't help but make him her son's godfather. Or the guy who accepted Peyton Sawyer into his life because she was the only person in the world who loved Brooke the way he did.

The way he still does.

"You have to snap out of it," Clay speaks softly, reaching for one of the sketches, "Dude, Brooke would hate it if she saw-"

"Brooke's fucking dead," the former musician says numbly, one thin shoulder lifting helplessly, "She left me, so what she wants doesn't count anymore."

"You don't mean that," Peyton cries, tears pooling in the hazel eyes that remind him way too much of his wife's, "Chris-"

"Get out of my house," he says seriously, glaring at her, "I only ever put up with you for her. And she's not here anymore. So leave. All of you just leave."

"I'm your best friend," Clay tries, eyes sincere, "Man, we love you. Come on… don't tarnish her memory like this."

Chris looks at him coldly and shakes his head, "You _were_ my best friend. But now you're just some guy standing where my wife used to stand. You don't mean anything to me. None of you do. So get the hell out of my house and leave me alone!"

"Chris, please," Mia speaks up, a crack to her voice, "We loved her too."

"You don't get it," he finally says, tears spiking though they didn't fall, "She is all I had in the world. She was everything! You have Nathan and your son. And you two," he looked from Peyton to Clay, "you have each other. I have nothing anymore."

The tears fall then and he crumples her sketches in his fists, "All I get are pictures of a future I never got the chance to have with her! We had it all figured out! EVERYTHING! We were supposed to have babies a-and we were supposed to spend our lives together here in this house. I was supposed to make love to her in this bed. We were supposed to do so many things, and now it's all gone! Every dream I ever had is gone."

He buries his face in his hands and cries, their wedding picture crumpled in his lap, "I need her!"

He shoves away the hands that try to hold him, shaking his head, "DON'T! YOU ARE NOT HER! Just don't!"

On day 33 he packs away her things. Clay offers to take the boxes to her mother, but Chris just shakes his head and puts them all in the attic. Her pictures still scatter the house and he can't bring himself to take them down. Peyton tries once and he doesn't speak to her for 6 days.

He still keeps some of her clothes in their drawers and her wedding dress hangs in their closet next to her favorite summer dress. He refuses to take them out no matter what Clay says. She is still his wife and this house is still hers. His heart is still hers.

On day 47 he gets around to cleaning out the back of their closet. He laughs until it hurts when he finds her Cosmo stash in the back corner. He shakes his head and looks upward, shaking his head with tears sliding down his cheeks, "I knew you didn't throw them away like you said you did… I miss you, crazy girl."

On the 69th day he goes to her grave with white lilies. Her favorite.

He sinks down before her grave and presses his lips to the stone. He cracks the barest of smiles and sets the lilies with the rest of her flowers, "I've been avoiding coming here. But you already know that. I figured today was a good day for it. It was your favorite number. You were so damn crazy, I swear," he rests his head against the rock and sniffles quietly, "I miss that level of crazy. Not a single other person in this world is crazy like you were."

He leans his side against the stone, finger tracing her name slowly, "Sometimes I feel like you're there. The other day I was laying our bed and I felt you. Your hand on my chest and your lips at my ear. I felt warm. At peace. For just a second. And then you were gone again."

He wipes away the lone tear that slides down his cheek, "I forgive you, you know. For leaving me. I was so mad at you for so long. And sometimes I still am. But I know you'd be with me if you could. We spent our entire lives together as friends, and I only got 6 months as your husband. It isn't fair. And it isn't right… but I don't blame you anymore."

He twirls the ring around his finger slowly, "Clay thinks it's time for me to take the ring off. I'm not going to. When I put this ring on, we made a vow to never take it off. Your ring is never leaving your finger, so mine won't either. You are the love of my life, Brooke Penelope Keller. And someday we'll be together again, I swear it. There's not a god cruel enough to keep me from you in the afterlife… it wouldn't be heaven without you there."

He adopts a baby girl with dimples and hazel eyes when he's 33, and he raises her with stories about the amazing woman who would have been her mother. He never meets anyone else he loves the way he always loved her. But after day 70 he doesn't let the sadness overwhelm him anymore.

On the day he dies, he opens his blue eyes one last time and smiles at the woman standing next to his bed. His daughter hears his whispered 'I missed you, Brooke' and she knows her father is gone. But she smiles.

She knows he's finally going home to be with the woman he loves.


End file.
